Sister of murder victim had affair with one of the accused

A sister of Limerick murder victim Breda Waters has admitted at the Central Criminal Court she was having an affair with one of the accused but it ended a month prior to the shooting dead of Ms Waters and Desmond Kelly.

Martina Waters (aged 20) told prosecuting counsel Mr Brendan Grehan, SC, her relationship with murder accused Patrick O'Brien ended “three or four weeks” before the O'Malley Park shootings.

She said the affair ended when his wife Susan found out.

“She was ringing me and we were not having pleasant conversations,” Ms Waters said in evidence on day four of the trial of first cousins Patrick O'Brien (aged 33) of Glanntan, Golflinks Road, Castletroy, Limerick and Thomas Stewart (aged 29) of The Cedar, Briarfield, Castletroy, Limerick who have both pleaded not guilty to the murders of Mr Kelly (aged 23) and Ms Waters (aged 28) on January 9, 2011 at O'Malley Park in Limerick.

Martina Waters recalled an incident in November 2011 when Mr O'Brien had threatened her verbally saying he had a gun when he called to her house at St Munchins Park in St Mary's Park.

“He was banging on the door and ringing my phone but I didn't answer,” said Ms Waters.

“I rang him back after he left and he asked if I was in the house and then he said I was lucky I didn't come down the stairs as he had a 'Yolk'. I asked him what was a 'Yolk' and he said a gun.”

Under cross-examining by Mr Sean Gillane, SC, defending Mr O'Brien, Ms Waters said “it probably doesn't make sense, but it is the truth,” when he put it to her that a sexual relationship developed between her and one of the accused a month after he threatened her.

She admitted she had sent O'Brien's wife Susan “nasty text messages” after Susan was diagnosed with cancer but said she could not remember what she had sent.

She denied she sent messages saying she hoped Susan would die from cancer and that she would have O'Brien for herself.

She first admitted O'Brien had never met her sister Breda but then admitted he had “only seen her once.”

She said the night of the double shooting she went to Mr Kelly's house with her sister Breda to meet Mattie Quinn, a man she had developed a friendship with and to have drinks.

She said later in the evening while they were drinking Mr Kelly had left the house for about 20 minutes and returned with a bag of heroin.

“I then left around 2.30am with Mattie and we stayed in his uncle's house a few doors up,” said Ms Waters.

She said Mr Kelly rang her phone around 5.30am to ask them to come back to the party and that she could hear her sister Breda “singing” in the background. She agreed with defence counsel that they “both appeared to be in good form and merry.”

“We didn't go back to the house and Mattie woke me up around 10.30am the following morning,” she said.

She admitted it was the first time she had met Mr Kelly and that she did not know if Breda had met him before.

The trial, which is continuing before Mr Justice George Birmingham, and a jury of six men and six women is expected to last another three weeks.